Chapter C: R. PERRY: At the last session of the Children's Librarians' Section (1)

action was taken looking towards a co-operative list of books for children. There were some features connected with it that were of such a general character that we thought it essential that the plan come before the Association in general session, to secure proper authority for us to proceed with the work; furthermore, there was no further session of the Children's Librarians' Section, so if a report was made at all it would have to be made to the A. L. A. in general session. The report is as follows:

_To the American Library Association_:

At the last session of the Children's Librarians' Section a committee was appointed to formulate some plan whereby a co-operative list of children's books may be produced, this committee to report at some general session. We now are ready and beg leave to report progress.

We have interviewed over 50 members of the A. L. A. within the last two days, and find a general desire for such a list. Moreover, the people interviewed have expressed their willingness to subscribe among themselves a sum of money necessary to cover the cost of preparing such list (postage, typewriting, stationery, printing, etc.).

Your committee have found that one or two days are hardly sufficient to enable us to bring our plan into perfection. We desire very strongly to accomplish the results for which we were appointed, and therefore ask for more time. We do respectfully recommend and ask that authority be given to our committee to proceed with the following plan:

(1) Committee on co-operative children's list to appoint six people to
collect the subscriptions which have been promised.

(2) Some one experienced and well-known librarian to be appointed by
our committee to undertake the preparation of the said list.

(3) When such person has been appointed and has accepted, the money
raised to be turned over to that librarian.

(4) Our committee to suggest to the person undertaking this work a plan
whereby not only may be secured the approval or disapproval of
librarians and teachers as to the books of the tentative list, but
also a report as to the manner in which these books have been
received by the children in all parts of the nation.

(5) A final and definite report to be submitted at the next conference.
This report to include the books generally accepted and those
rejected as well.
Respectfully submitted,

CHESLEY R. PERRY, _Chairman_,
J. C. DANA,
ELIZA G. BROWNING.

President CARR: This report comes before you in the nature of a recommendation, and suitable action would be to move that the Association appoint a general committee to carry out the recommendations of the report. That committee might consist of the members of the present committee, who drew this report--Mr. Perry, Mr. Dana and Miss Browning.

R. R. BOWKER: Is not this a matter which should come under the jurisdiction of the Publishing Board? It would then give this proposed committee somewhat the relation to the Publishing Board that is borne by the advisory committee on printed catalog cards. Otherwise we might have a confusion of results.

Mr. PERRY: That matter was discussed, but we felt that we were preparing something which at the next convention might be submitted to the Association, and then referred to the Publishing Board. We are not expecting to prepare a list for general printing and circulation, but a list which may be brought up at the next conference as something definite to be referred to the Publishing Board.

It was _Voted_, That the committee acting for the Children's Librarians' Section be appointed to carry out the work outlined.

PRINTED CATALOG CARDS.

HERBERT PUTNAM: I ask your indulgence, Mr. President, for a few words. The readiness of the Library of Congress to take up the work of supplying printed cards has been stated. For the Library of Congress, I wish to say that we do not repudiate anything of what has been stated as to our readiness; it must be understood, however, that we are justified in entering upon this undertaking only in case it presents a reasonable probability of success. Now, for that probability three elements are essential. First, some body that should represent judgment and experience, in such co-operative work, and be in touch with the interests at large of the Library Association. That body is furnished by the Publishing Board. Second, there was necessary some office that was directly in relation with the publishers of this country. That office is the _Publishers' Weekly_, and the _Publishers' Weekly_ has generously offered to place at our disposal all of its facilities for securing prompt information as to every recent publication. Third, there is a strong probability that during the first year at least there will be some deficit, while the experiment is merely beginning. That danger has been met. Mr. Bowker, personally, has tendered a guaranty amounting, if necessary, to $1000, to meet the possible deficit of the undertaking during the present calendar year. Repudiating nothing of what has been said about the readiness of the Library of Congress to serve in this undertaking, I nevertheless wish this matter to appear in its proper proportions, and we should not be willing to have these other elements overlooked.

In the absence of THORVALD SOLBERG, J. C. HANSON read Mr. Solberg's paper on

BOOK COPYRIGHT.

(_See_ p. 24.)

GEORGE ILES read a paper on

THE TRUSTEESHIP OF LITERATURE.

(_See_ p. 16.)

Mr. ILES: I may add, that when I was in England three years ago and talked about this scheme, one or two asked me, "Who is going to meet your libel suits?" I explained that there was already a very large body of responsible critics who contribute in this country, especially in this field; as, for instance, the critics of the _American Historical Review_, and the notes that I have in mind are very much of the color of the notes one reads in such reviews--not many of them very black, not many of them very white; most of them a whitey brown. I have never heard yet of any libel suits against the editors of the _American Historical Review_, even when their reviews have not been particularly amiable. I do not think we need to dread any litigation. Mr. Larned went to work in organizing his staff of contributors with great caution and good judgment. He did not choose them from any one particular university, but when he heard that at University "A" there was a man who was acknowledged to know the literature of the Columbian period of American history better than anybody else, he sought to enlist that man. And Mr. Larned has been limited, of course, in various ways that you can readily understand, as for instance when sometimes a contributor has given him notes which he has felt obliged to discard. And let me say also that in the main the most important work has been done by the professors of history in the colleges and universities, except for the period of the Civil War, where the late General Cox, who had made a special study of that field, was his contributor. Mr. Larned's idea is simply to find throughout this country in any particular field--the Civil War period, or the pre-Columbian period, or the settlement of the Northwest period, or the war of 1812--the most authoritative and trustworthy man and enlarge his audience to take in all the readers and students in this country, instead of having him speak merely to the students of a particular university or to the readers of a particular review.

Dr. RICHARD T. ELY read a paper on the same subject.
(_See_ p. 22.)

Mr. BOWKER: Can't we have a word from Mr. Thwaites on this question?

R. G. THWAITES: I do not suppose I ought to speak on this matter, for I am one of Mr. Larned's contributors. I have done a good deal of annotation, or evaluation, of this sort, upon request; I have a fair acquaintance with reviewers, and have done a good deal of reviewing myself. I know the limitations of reviewers, and there is, I think, a great deal of truth in what Dr. Ely says. I always want to know, when I read a review, who wrote the review; after I know the individual who has written the review, I make up my mind more or less regarding its verdict. Often, in writing annotations for this work of Mr. Larned's I have felt the very serious responsibility which rested upon me as an individual contributor, in seeming to crystallize judgment for generations perhaps--if this book is to be used for generations--and the possible harm that might result from such crystallization. I know that my point of view will be entirely different from another man's point of view. You take four or five men and ask them to write a note on the same book for this annotated list, and you will have four or five different judgments--absolutely, radically different. It is perhaps, a dangerous thing to crystallize these judgments; and yet, after all, I sympathize very greatly with Mr. Iles' position. I think the thing should be done. Librarians are asked for such judgments all the time. All of us who write text-books are continually asked for annotated bibliographies for students to follow, and we are always passing judgments--other people might call them "snap" judgments--upon various books. Great wisdom is necessary in this matter. For instance, the other day Mr. Larned sent a note to two of us who are contributing to this annotated bibliography. It happened through some editorial mistake that two notes, asking for comment on a certain book, were written to different individuals. It was Dr. Davis Dewey, of the Institute of Technology, who happened to cross my path and wrote a note on the same book. Now we had two absolutely different opinions about this book. And yet it was very natural. I had looked at this book as the story of an exploring tour down the Mississippi valley; he had looked at it as a study in sociology from an economic standpoint. It was exceedingly interesting from my standpoint; it was filled with fallacies and whims from the standpoint of an economist and sociologist. Well, I threw up my note and let his stand. What are we going to do about it? Some work of this kind ought to be done, because it is most useful; but after all, I think Dr. Ely's word of warning is one that we should take to heart very thoroughly. Personally I really don't know whether we ought to "evaluate" literature or not; and yet I am doing it all the time.

Mr. ILES: We expect that this bibliography of Mr. Larned's, and any others in the same series which may follow, will appear also in card form, and I very much desire when the central bureau finds that a particular note can be replaced by a better one, in the light of further developments, that that particular note should be withdrawn, and a better and more nearly just note be substituted; all gratuitously to the subscribing libraries.

F. M. CRUNDEN: I realize the force of what Dr. Ely has said, but I still believe that this work is worth doing, because it is exceedingly valuable to us. We have got to have some guide. We cannot all of us read in all lines and so far as the contradictory notes referred to go, it seems to me that all that was necessary was for the editor to apply to those two divergent notes just the remark that Mr. Thwaites made--that one was written from the standpoint of the sociologist and economist, the other from that of the historian and geographer. From one side it was a good book; from the other side a bad book.

Mr. PUTNAM: I speak on such a subject as this with very great reluctance, and yet, as a librarian who has had occasion in times past to select--I do not have so much occasion now, because so much matter comes to us without inspection--I wish to draw a distinction between selection and exclusion. Now, when Dr. Ely speaks of an _index librorum prohibitorum_ or an _index expurgatorius_, the implication is that the libraries of this country, on advice or of their own motion without advice, are deliberately excluding from their collection books of which they disapprove. The librarian, however, approaches the matter in an entirely different way. He has at his disposal, for purchase, a very limited sum of money; a very limited sum of money, no matter how large his library, for the amount of literature put upon the market is practically limitless. Men of science themselves, after contending for liberty of expression, do not always use that liberty with discretion or to the advantage of the community. Now, there must be a selection. That is the point we start from as librarians; that is the duty laid upon us--to get, with the means at our command, the books that will be most useful to our constituents. Now, that means choice. How are we to make a choice? I do not believe there is a librarian in the United States who would set himself up as an arbiter or an expert in every department of literature; who would claim to determine the value of doctrine, either in religion or in economics, the two departments of literature as to which the discrimination must be most difficult and most dangerous; and yet even in those departments we must choose. That means a selection. What is the alternative, in case we have no guide? What would Dr. Ely offer us? Dr. Ely, of course, as any university professor, has his students, who are studying not merely one subject in which they wish to get the best and final opinion, but all opinions, from which they are to draw conclusions. Now, the duty of the librarian is simply to represent all opinions, and not his own opinion, or his notion of the best opinion, or somebody else's notion of the best opinion; but, given a doctrine which is important, which is attracting attention, he assumes that this doctrine must be represented in his collection. It is only a question of what represents this doctrine best--not whether the doctrine is right or wrong. If there is a book regarding which there are two opinions, the appraisal may give the two opinions, as all appraisals should, so far as it can be done. The substance of what I wish to say is this: our duty is not one of exclusion; it is one of selection, and that fact is as little understood as any element in library administration to-day--and I am sorry to say that the misunderstanding is apt to be countenanced by the librarian. Take for instance the case of the Boston Public Library, berated all over the country for excluding certain books from its collection. Now, the Boston Public Library deliberately excludes, to my knowledge, almost no book. Its process is of selection. It receives about seven hundred volumes of recent fiction a year, to consider for purchase. It believes that it is for the best interests of its constituents to buy less than two hundred titles and multiply copies. Now, how is it going to dispose of the other five hundred? They are neither rebuked, disapproved of or placed in an index. They are simply left out, because in the process of selection, the first two hundred seem most useful for the purpose of the library.

Dr. ELY: I was not thinking about the librarians in my remarks. They must, of course, make their selections of books, but what I had in mind was the bringing, especially in the form of a card catalog, these judgments and these appraisals before the reading public all over the entire country, and so possibly forming opinion, along one line. Formerly librarians have had a great many facilities to aid them in making this selection of which Mr. Putnam has spoken. They have had the various periodicals with their reviews; they could read these and base their selections upon these. I had especially in mind the objections to crystallizing opinion and bringing a one-sided opinion, or one kind of an opinion, before the entire United States, instead of having opinions of one sort in one place and opinions of another sort in another place. Also, it is the impartial nature, or the apparently impartial nature, of the proposed "evaluations" which seems to me especially objectionable. Of course, in our college classrooms, we give our estimates of books, but Professor A will give one estimate, and then the students go to Professor B's class-room, and they hear another estimate, so that they soon learn the personal inclinations and preferences of the various professors, and can soon offer some explanation of the conditions and the circumstances under which these estimates are formed. And the views expressed in one university are criticised very largely by another university. Not so I take it with the person who ordinarily consults the card catalog of a public library.

R. R. BOWKER: May I take a moment from my own paper to say just a word on this subject? Questions are asked of the librarians, and they must be answered. To answer them in the fullest light instead of the scantiest is, as I understand, the purpose of what Mr. Iles calls "evaluation." If Miss Smith--I think there are six of her, so that my remarks are not personal--comes from the library school, or after the library school training, to a public library desk, she is sure to be asked questions, we will say, in American history. There may be an information clerk to refer them to, or there may not; but, as I understand, this work of Mr. Iles is intended, not to exclude other sources of information, but to give Miss Smith opportunity to inquire and obtain the best and widest available information as to the character of a particular book, or as to its rating. If this book were to be the sole and exclusive authority, then of course we might have a censorship in literature, but I do not understand that in the minds of the promotors of this plan there is any such design to make an exclusive and solely authoritative work.

W. MILLARD PALMER read a paper on

THE RELATIONSHIP OF PUBLISHERS, BOOKSELLERS, AND LIBRARIANS.

(_See_ p. 31.)

R. R. BOWKER: There is, or should be, I take it, a large purpose common to all who have to deal with books, as intermediaries between the author and the reader, whether from the altruistic side, as the librarian, or from the commercial side, as the publisher and bookseller. We are familiar with one expression of that purpose, to get "the best reading for the largest number at the least cost"; and I, for one, am firmly of the opinion that that function is properly shared by the two classes of whom I have spoken, that they are not in competition but in co-operation; I mean the librarian and the bookseller. It is a narrow view, it would seem, which puts the two in opposition, or even in the position of competitors. And just as it seems that the bookseller is wrong in feeling that the librarian is interfering with his business, so I think it is wrong for the librarian to feel that the bookseller should in any way be limited or hampered or belittled in his kind of work of getting books to the people. It seems to me a truism, indeed, that there is one thing better than a book loaned, and that is a book owned. The ideal library community is, after all, one in which the people are so well supplied with books in their own homes that the function of the library is not so much a great circulation, however fine that may look in the statistics, but rather that of guide and helper to readers in the selection, and, if you please, in the "evaluation" of books. The board of health in a city or in a state is, perhaps, a fair illustration of the final function of the librarian; a health board, in its ideal, is a body to promote sanitation, to warn people against errors, to get rid of the mistake that tuberculosis is a hereditary disease from which people have to suffer, instead of one which is communicated and which can be avoided; rather than a body to furnish free medical attendance like a dispensary. So I start with the proposition, that it is desirable for librarians, for public librarians, as such, to encourage most of all the formation and owning of private libraries throughout their bailiwicks.

Now, there has been one difficulty of late years in bringing about this result, in the most effective way, and that difficulty has been felt not only in this country, but throughout most countries--the fact that competition, not in quality but in "cut rate" price, has practically taken away the living of the commercial intermediary in the distribution of books, the hire of the laborer who is working in that particular vineyard. That has been true in Germany, in France, in England, and in this country. It has not prevented the sale of books; it _seems_ not to have limited the sale of books; but it is probably true that the dissemination of the best literature among the mass of the people, in private libraries, while it has been immensely improved by the library system, has not been promoted by the bookselling system under present conditions as it should be. In Germany, a movement has been on foot for a few years past, and has been quite successful, to give that particular kind of librarian, the bookseller, a fee more worthy of his function; a profit which makes it possible for him to keep that sort of library which is distributed into private libraries, _i.e._, the book store. In France a very curious difficulty is in illustration. There the price of books had come to be very low, so low that when a rise in the price of paper came, the publisher's business was found to be almost impossible. The remedy naturally took the shape of a general rise in price, a considerable rise in price in cheaper books, sufficient to meet that particular difficulty and to make possible at the same time a better recompense, a living wage, to the intermediary. Now, the whole tendency of modern industrial development is to get rid of the intermediary as much as possible; _i. e._, to have as few steps, of person and of cost, between the producer and the consumer as is practicable. This we may take as fundamental to-day. It remains true, nevertheless, that there must, as a rule, be somebody between the producer and the consumer, between the person in the great manufacturing center and the remote distributing points on the circumference to bring the thing wanted to the person who wants it; and it is only in view of that requirement that the bookseller is to be considered. In that sense, as I have said, he seems a complement of the librarian, and the book store the complement of the library. Now, a librarian cannot live without salary, though many live on very small salaries, in the hope of better things--and one of the accomplishments of the American Library Association has been to bring better things to the librarian. Both the dignity and the emolument of the library profession have been, I believe, increased greatly by the existence of this Association. The librarian receives a salary, and it is not true, as we all know, that books can be circulated freely from public libraries in the sense of their being circulated without cost. Indeed, we have occasion to lament often that the cost of circulating a single volume is so great. It is a fair question whether the cost of shelving, preparing for the public, and in many cases, of circulating a volume, is not greater than the fee which the bookseller asks as his profit, his wage in transferring that volume from the publisher to the reader. Therefore it seems to me that the suggestion of which Mr. Dewey is the apostle, that the public library should take the place of the book store, that it should exhibit recent books to the public and take the public's orders for those books, rests both on an economic and on a social fallacy. In a word, work cannot be done for nothing, and whether that work is paid for by the public in the shape of salaries or by the private buyer in the shape of profits is a matter of comparison.

About the time at which the A. L. A. was organized, in 1876, there was an attempt on the part of the book trade to deal with this question, and at Philadelphia, in 1876, a meeting was held at which a reform plan was initiated. That plan, it seemed to me then as it seems to me now, involved a fundamental mistake, in that it did not deal with the question of published prices. It is evident that books cannot be increased in price, unless there is a specific reason in the price of paper or some such reason, without interference with their sale and wide distribution. It is poor policy for the publisher to limit the sale of his ware by putting a higher price on it than the traffic will bear. At that meeting it was proposed not to alter the published prices of books, but to recognize formally the custom of giving twenty per cent. discount to the retail buyer. The reform proceeded upon that basis, and the system presently broke down. Within a year past there have been shaped two organizations, the American Publishers' Association and the American Booksellers' Association, which are working in harmony on another plan. That plan is that new books, new copyright books (fiction and some special classes excepted for the time), should be published at a price which recognizes the fact that the published price hitherto has not been the real or standard price. In other words, a book which was priced at $1.50 it is expected to publish at twenty per cent., more or less, below that price, and to make a $1.50 book, say, $1.25 or $1.20; a $2 book $1.60 or $1.50, and a $1 book 75 or 80 cents. This plan recognizes the existing situation, and the proposal is that the plan shall be enforced by the publishers declining to supply books to booksellers who fail to maintain those standard prices. The plan has worked out with other classes of specially owned articles, in that respect similar to books, and it has worked with fair success.

There is only one exception which the bookseller is permitted under the proposed regulations to make, and that is a discount to the library. That discount is limited to ten per cent., and I think it should fairly be stated that this may increase, perhaps by five or ten per cent., the actual prices which some libraries, at least, have been paying for their books. That is a disadvantage from the library point of view which must be faced. I do not know that it will increase the price in the case of libraries generally. In the case of the public, it has been true that while many have paid the lower price for the books, others have been asked the full published price, so that there has been an inequality of price where the person best equipped in one sense, least equipped in another, has had the advantage of the lower price. In other words, the person who had most books and knew most about them, got the book at a very low price, and the person who was really most in need of the book, because he knew less, had to pay the full price for it. I do not believe myself that that is the right or a good way of doing business. It would not be the method which you would permit in libraries, of treating one person differently from another, because the fundamental proposition of this Association is that the public should be treated equally and justly. Take it altogether, I for one believe that although in some cases there may be this slight rise in cost to the library, the whole library situation, or, I should say, the whole book situation, would be so much improved by the proposed change that it would be to the general advantage of the libraries to suffer that specific disadvantage.

Nevertheless, there is a good deal of grasping in human nature, and it might be very wise for the American Library Association, in one sense representing the public, to come into official relation with this matter and be the guardian of the buying interests, to the extent of making sure that there is a real reduction in the prices of books on this scheme. The large-minded publishers will doubtless see their interests in making the reduction throughout on the copyright books which are to be published on this plan. There are others who may not see this advantage, and who may attempt, under the new plan, to set as high a price on the book as under the old plan. If we had a committee of this Association on relations with the book trade, it might be possible for such a committee, known to be on the alert, to prevent or remedy cases of that sort, and I trust such a committee will be appointed by this body, or by its Council, as I shall take the liberty of moving.

I should feel some hesitancy in speaking to this Association from the two points of view, of relation with the book trade and of relation with the library interests; _i.e._, of speaking as the editor of the _Publishers' Weekly_ and as the editor of the _Library Journal_, but for the fact that I believe the interests to be one. I may, however, make the personal explanation that while it seems to me that a journalist cannot write that in which he does not believe, on the other hand, a journalist who is responsible for the conduct of a representative journal cannot interpolate his own opinion to the exclusion of the opinion of the class whom he is supposed to represent; for that reason I have taken the position in my own office that in case the library interests should come in conflict with the publishing interests, I will give over that particular subject to some librarian, who, using the editorial columns of the _Library Journal_, will represent distinctively, free from any interest in the book trade, the views of the Library Association and of the library interests at large. I take this opportunity to say that in case the opinion of this Association is adverse to the plan which I have been outlining, the _Library Journal_ will take that course in presenting fairly and fully the views of the profession. When the whole question is threshed out; when such a committee has discussed, perhaps with the publishers' association itself, whether there should not be a somewhat greater discount to the librarian, to equalize the old rates; when such a committee expostulates with individual publishers against an abuse of this plan, I believe that the result will be, on the whole, to promote the wide and useful dissemination of books, and I trust that any action which is taken, if action should be taken by the Association or by its Council, will be in view of the wider co-operation in which these two interests should work. Let me remind you that the bookseller cannot live without earning his living any more than the librarian, and it is not quite fair perhaps for those of us who are protected by salaries to impeach the fair living which the bookseller earns in another way. The book store should exist in every community, alongside the library. We know as a matter of fact that even our large cities, certainly our small cities, even more our towns, are very ill equipped with book stores; that in many places they are notable for their absence rather than for their presence. This element of active work in the distribution of books should, I believe, come back more to our American life. It cannot come back, apparently, under present conditions, and any movement, it seems to me, should have the helping hand of the A. L. A. that tends to put the American bookseller on a plane with the librarian as an agent for the dissemination of the best books at the least cost to the most people, and I emphasize "at the least cost," meaning the least cost at which the service can be rightfully performed.

Adjourned at 12.45 p.m.

_SIXTH SESSION._

(FOUNTAIN SPRING HOUSE, TUESDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 9.)

The meeting was called to order at 2.15 p.m. by President CARR, who announced that the discussion would be continued from the morning session, on the subject

THE RELATIONSHIP OF PUBLISHERS, BOOKSELLERS AND LIBRARIANS.

MELVIL DEWEY: There seems to be an impression on the part of some that the attitude I have taken in regard to this question is for the sake of starting up discussion. I am quite sincere in what I say and in what I believe in regard to it. In the first place, I think nothing could be more unfortunate than for any of us to get into an attitude of antagonism with the publishers and booksellers. There was something like that twenty-five years ago; their organization and ours began at the same time. There were some who wanted to fight with the booksellers and publishers. I think that is all wrong. I am heartily in sympathy with nearly everything that Mr. Bowker said this morning, and with what has appeared in the columns of the _Publishers' Weekly_. I read every page of it. I believe so profoundly in the value of the bookman's work that, when formulating definitions of our university studies, as to what a full-fledged university should be, I insisted it should include publishing research and publication, not only the preservation of learning. It is because I have so profound a respect for what may be done by the book trade, as we call it, that I believe in these things. But the discussion this morning seemed to be very much on the line of Ruskin's attack on railroads, which he said always were devices of the devil, and he said it very eloquently. You heard the same talk about the trolley lines--about the whitening bones of the young innocents that had been killed by them. We were assured that bicycles were to destroy the horse trade entirely, yet horses now bring double what they did before. Twenty-five years ago, I remember a very prominent man most earnestly pointing out just what was pointed out this morning--that the A. L. A. and the public libraries were simply devices to injure the interests of publishers and booksellers. And the attitude of men on these things is based on what Mr. Bowker called "an economic and social fallacy." I like the phrase; only he was fitting it to me, and I fit it to him, and it is for you to decide which is right. The question hinges on what we understand the library to be. If the library is like a blacksmith shop, or shoe store, or something of that kind, then he is right. If the library is an essential part in our system of education and a necessity for our civilization, then I am right. In New York we still have the plank road and the toll-gate, and we are just taking them over for public use--buying them and abolishing the tolls, so that the public's right to use the roads has come back to them. All the arguments we heard this morning would fit the question of abolishing the toll-roads. A great many people keep no horses. Why should they be taxed to maintain the roads? We have the fire department. We do not tax only the people whose houses are on fire. It is a public necessity. We have the best illustration of the case in our schools. The tax-supported high school has killed off a number of private schools, and estimable people who were earning their living that way were thrown out of employment. And the tax-supported high school is in analogy with the public library. It has offered instruction free and has ruined the business of others. It is so with many professional schools. A transition has been going on very rapidly. The last big fight we have been having is over the business colleges, some of which are directed by mere charlatans, and others by those who are giving admirable instruction, doing their work well. But they have outlived their time. The public demanded that certain instruction of this kind should be made available cheaply to all the people.

Now, we have been charged with wanting to abolish the bookseller. I never said anything about abolishing him. It is like saying that because the tadpole is going to be a frog we are abolishing the tadpoles. It is nature that does it; it is a matter of growth. Or it is like saying that the entomologist in pointing out that the moth is going to develop into the butterfly, is abolishing all the moths. So the good booksellers, if they go on with the work of supplying the public with good reading, will do it through the agency of the public library, where they can do it cheaper. When we are sure that a certain thing ought to be done; that it is a good thing; and, secondly, when we are sure that it can be done cheaper than in any other way, we are not inclined to waste a great deal of time theorizing over anybody's philosophy as to whether it is a proper thing to do or not. We want the right things done in the best and cheapest way. I am sorry to see the old-time bookseller, who did good work, crowded out of the field. I do not see any way in which he can save himself, except in the largest cities. I am sorry to see a great many of the old schools, the secondary schools, crowded out of business and entirely replaced by the tax-supported schools. I do not understand that it is our purpose, either in this Association, or in life, to be studying how we are going to feed every man after the system which has fed him up to the present time is abolished. If the man is good for anything, he will earn his wages; and it is utterly fallacious to say a thing is wrong because somebody is going to lose his business. When the railroad was built a great many worthy men who drove stage coaches were driven out of business in just that way. Every modern improvement does that; new machinery of all kinds has the effect of driving people out of employment; but, in the long run, it pays.

I ought to say in the first place that the suggestion that the librarian would sell books for a profit is one of those queer things that crop out in connection with all great movements. I never yet heard of any library that was buying books and distributing them. I believe that the library will order books in connection with other work. My thesis is this: the book owned is a great deal better than the book loaned. I believe it is better for a man to own a book than to borrow it; that it is legitimate, at public expense, to show him that book in the library and hand it to him as his book--just as legitimate an expense, every way, as it is to employ a man to sell people books so that they won't patronize the Booklovers' Library. I think the whole thing hinges there. It is not a matter of theory, but of fact. If that is what we want to accomplish, can we do it best with the book store or with the library? I contend that it is impossible to rehabilitate the old bookseller, any more than the old private school, which could be done only by endless means in endowment. I do not believe we should try, because it can be done better and cheaper in another way; because the library has the books on its shelves. The statistics this morning showed that the bookseller is dying out. I believe it to be entirely impossible to rehabilitate that profession. If in the library it becomes a recognized principle that the library is supported at public expense for the purpose of lending books. I am confident that the public will demand it to be done in that way. I am confident of another thing. You have only to consult your catalogs to see the remarkable development of the last decade in publishing which is done by endowed universities and colleges and of learned societies. See the great body of technical journals that have been turned over the university presses. Every university that pretends to accomplish much now has a press, and is developing it with great rapidity. It was said this morning that the publisher hinged on the cash; that the bookseller hinged on that. Ladies and gentlemen, the cash profit is not a proper scale in which to weigh the questions in which we are interested. When you take questions of education, or religion, or philanthropy, and put them on a question of cash profit, you are in an absolutely false attitude. I do not mean by that that we must not regard business conditions. We must know how to pay for our coal and our rent, but not a dividend in dollars and cents. And the moment my antagonist says that this question is to be measured by a cash dividend, I say he is ruled out of court in any body of librarians who are giving their lives and their work at salaries not at all commensurate, but who make dividends on a higher plane. There is no occasion for an attitude of hostility; nor, I take it, for me to take issue on this new proposition in regard to prices to libraries. There is not a librarian in this room who has all the money he wants. If prices rise ten per cent., it will diminish the number of books he can buy. I followed the argument this morning. If it is correct, there is only one thing we can do. We, as librarians, are cutting into the revenues of these men, and we ought not only not to ask a discount but librarians ought to pay twenty-five per cent. in addition, because we are cutting into their revenues. We ought to appoint a committee, which without a bit of the spirit of antagonism, should meet the publishers and booksellers and point out all over the United States large consumers who buy for cash. I think it is a practical mistake to try to force up the price, and that we are bound as custodians of this money that is put in our hands, firmly and courteously, but, I am sure, with the most friendly relations on both sides, to see that the prices of our books shall not be cut down.

I say, therefore, in summing up, after an observation of thirty years, that I am confident that the library of this century is going to assume those educational functions, and that among the most prominent of these is the putting into the hands of the people who wish to make their lives wealthier in arts or trades the books of power and of inspiration. The public library cannot afford not to put into their hands at a minimum price the books they want to read. And, logically we shall be forced in that direction. You will find that this tendency is growing all the while, and we will have to put the library squarely alongside the high school. Indeed the library in its development is following exactly the line of development of the tax-supported high school and for that same reason, that in the high school we now offer instruction free, the library will offer books for sale without profit--there should be no profit in the library--and will lend books freely, and will with regret kill the local book store and supplant it by something that is worth a great deal more.

W. I. FLETCHER: I have been so long on the Publishing Board with Mr. Dewey that I have got thoroughly in the habit, when he gets through, of saying something on the other side. It seems to me that a few words might be said to clarify this subject. It is undoubtedly true, as Mr. Dewey has said, that a book store that is worth anything could not be established in every place in the country. There ought to be something of the sort, even if it is a public library. The book stores exist only in places where it is commercially possible, and that number of places is very limited. Now I suppose that if we could ascertain the communities where it is not commercially possible for a book store to be carried on, we should none of us have any objection--it seems to me most of us would favor the idea--that the public library should, to some extent, take the place of the book store in supplying books to the would-be owners in such a community. That leaves the question confined to those places where a book store is commercially impossible, probably to those places where book stores have been, even with difficulty, maintained under past conditions. I should be willing, for my own part, to do all I could in securing the establishment of a good book store where there is not one, where it is commercially possible to maintain one. Where it is not, it would be a good thing to let the library sell the books. I am greatly impressed with the argument as to the advantages of a book store in a community where it can be maintained. So it seems to me that there is not very much difference of opinion among us, after all, as I dare say those who spoke this morning would not object seriously to the distribution of books for sale through the libraries, where there is no hope of having a local book store. As to the amount of discount under this new arrangement, I am entirely in accord with Mr. Dewey in wishing that the Association might present whatever are the views of the Association. On the subject of the amount of discount that we ought to have, I should hardly feel that the booksellers were treating us right in this country if they should follow the custom of the German publishing trade and refuse any discount at all; and it is a question whether the ten per cent. which they propose to allow under this new system is enough. I have advised our library committee to express a hearty readiness to accede to the proposed arrangement, to take the ten per cent. discount, and we have given our adhesion to it. Perhaps that was somewhat hasty, before the librarians in general had an opportunity to act; but I do not believe anything very different from that will be the attitude of the librarians at large. We might in time, for example, make it fifteen per cent., but I am sure that could not be done at present. I am heartily in sympathy with the movement that will make it possible to have a good book store, which I believe every librarian would like to have in his place.

W. M. PALMER: I wish to say just this: Of course in the lack of time that was accorded me, it is difficult to say all that can be said on the subject, and explain the by-paths, and so forth; but, as I intimated at the introduction of my paper, I simply stated what I said as facts, and while we wish a great many things to be different, we realize that they cannot be reached in a certain direction all at once. In order to bring the bookselling business to a basis which will enable the bookseller to live, some reform had to take place. The publishers have seen fit to institute the reform which has been outlined to-day. When I spoke this morning, for instance, of the fact that some librarians ordered books for friends and others at the discounts which the library and they themselves received from the booksellers, I did not wish to impute any wrong motive to the librarian in doing that. It is a matter within the knowledge of the booksellers, and the booksellers wink at it. I do not think there was any element of dishonesty in it, because the bookseller who sold the book to the librarian knew it was again to be sold to some friend of the librarian.

R. R. BOWKER: In offering a resolution, I wish to say just a word or two. I had not expected Mr. Dewey to make an argument in favor of the public library, for certainly there would be no disagreement on that point in this room. Where he went further and suggested that the salaried librarian should become the commercial bookseller, I think and I hope that there are few to follow him to that length of argument. As to the Booklovers' Library, of course that is not at all in analogy with the public library, and I want to take this opportunity to call attention to what seems to me an admirable use of the Booklovers' Library scheme, so long as it can hold out. Mr. Carr has told me that he has looked upon the Booklovers' Library as a very useful overflow or safety-valve for the public library. When thirty-five people come at once and want "Quincy Adams Sawyer," and a librarian sees that the two copies that could be put on the shelves would not meet the demand, he would say to himself "I cannot rightly spend the money for thirty-five copies," and therefore he would say to the thirty-three, "You can go to the Booklovers' Library and get these new books just when you want them." So this library may be a relief to the librarian who is conscientious in the spending of his money.

The resolution which I now ask to move is that the Council be requested to appoint a committee on relations with the book trade, to which this question shall be referred.

The resolution was carried.

The general session was then adjourned, and there followed a Round Table meeting on

THE WORK OF STATE LIBRARY COMMISSIONS.

(_See_ p. 171.)

_SEVENTH SESSION._

(FOUNTAIN SPRING HOUSE, WEDNESDAY MORNING, JULY 10.)

President CARR called the meeting to order at 10 a.m., and after local announcements by the secretary called upon the tellers to report upon

ELECTION OF OFFICERS.

The result of the balloting was announced by the secretary as follows:
_President_: John S. Billings, 103.
_1st Vice-president_: J. K. Hosmer, 103.
_2d Vice-president_: Electra C. Doren, 104.
_Secretary_: Frederick W. Faxon, 104.
_Treasurer_: Gardner M. Jones, 105.
_Recorder_: Helen E. Haines, 105.
_Trustee of Endowment Fund_: Charles C. Soule, 81.
_A. L. A. Council_: M. E. Ahern, 101; E. H. Anderson, 104; Johnson
Brigham, 104; John Thomson, 104; H. M. Utley, 105.

The president then announced that the Association would be glad to hear from Mr. PUTNAM, as chairman of the

COMMITTEE ON RESOLUTIONS.

Mr. PUTNAM: The Committee on Resolutions has suffered the usual embarrassments of committees on resolutions. It has been compelled to abstain from expressions which might seem hyperbole, and from designating by name many services that prefer to remain anonymous.

It is the custom of certain associations to make acknowledgment to those speakers on the program not members of the conference. That is not customary with the A. L. A. Had it been, I should have had a special pleasure in proposing an acknowledgment to Professor Ely for his presence and paper yesterday. It is no slight compliment to the Association when a thinker and writer so eminent as Dr. Ely is willing to lay his views before it. It is, in a sense, a greater compliment when his views prove unfavorable to some undertaking which the Association is inclined to approve. It implies that our action may be important, and therefore our judgment worth convincing. Could the Association convince Dr. Ely, great advantage indeed might result. For should a selected list of books in economics be undertaken with helpful notes--I will not say "evaluations," or "appraisals"--but helpful _notes_, Dr. Ely's aid would be one of those first sought.

The resolutions follow:

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON RESOLUTIONS.

_Resolved_, That the American Library Association, in concluding a meeting that has been one of the most largely attended and most successful in its history, desires to express its hearty obligation to the various committees and individuals who have made considerate arrangements for its comfort, and in many an agreeable incident acted as its hosts. In particular:

To the Wisconsin Free Library Commission for its efficient general arrangements for the conference;